when you seize every benefit you could, yo ♪ ♪ our palms are sweaty ♪ knees weak arms heavy ♪ working in a factory like chevy like the volt snoelts you plug it in and you win ecologically because if it was an actual race you would not actually you've got to dues correct for the union or robots are going to come and take away our jobs or to the chinese kids with the tiny hands the work will go ♪ ♪ this opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo ♪ >>> welcome back to "morning joe." a live look at times square in new york city. the sun has yet to come up. everybody neats to wake up, though. it's time to wake up, mike barnicle. >> okay. >> still with us. joining us from washington, "new york times" columnist tom friedman. and here on set, msnbc political analyst and vice president and executive editor of msnbc.com, richard wolffe and carl bernstein. good to have you all on board today. >> i'd love to start with tom friedman. tom, we're obviously talking about michigan, talking about the protests, between the republican governor and the unions organized labor. and it seems to me that u